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One man is making that future brighter one construction project at a time. J.T. Olson is the founder and president of Both Hands, a ministry dedicated to helping Christian adoptive families fund their adoptions by coordinating service projects and fixing up widows' homes. Here's JT with a story. What we do at both hands is we help families raise money for adoptions and We do it by serving a widow.
And whenever I explain that to somebody, they usually are very polite. They look at me, though, with this glassy eyes. Because they think it's real nice, but they really have no idea what it means. And so I have found the best way for someone to understand both hands is to really tell you how it started. I'm I mean, it was back.
Probably about the turn of the century, I was on the board of a local nonprofit here in town that served birth moms. And one year I was in charge of the fundraiser. and I chose to do a golf fundraising. It was a kind of fundraiser where you, before the event, you sent letters out ahead of time asking people to sponsor.
So I send my letters out, and I had a buddy who I'm in a Bible study with. He sends my letter back to me. does not include a check. He just scribbled on my letter with a magic marker. JT, if you told me you were working on a widow's house...
I might sponsor you. But you're just golfing. Nice cause, but not my money. And it it hurt my feelings a little bit, but at the same time I thought, Man, that's a good idea. And the idea just never left me.
Whatever I saw. A 5K or a golf tournament after that, I couldn't help but thinking: if all those people were working on a widow's house, Instead, would it be better, would it be more powerful? I just didn't have the orphan park figured out. And so a couple years later, this story develops. I'm in church when a good friend of mine hadn't seen him in a couple months.
I say, hey, Don, what's up? He looked at me and said, we're adopting four kids from Moldova. And I was taken aback a little. I mean, he already has three kids at home. And I said, wow.
But what happened? And he said, Well, I went on a mission trip with Sweet Sleep. They live in beds, orphanages in Moldova, and fell in love with this little boy, George. When we got back, we started the adoption process, and in the process, we found out George has three siblings. And Don looked at me and said, we're not going to break up the siblings.
And when he said that, it took me back to when I was 12 years old. living on a farm in northeastern Iowa. There was five of us kids. And one weekend, my mom and dad left to celebrate their 16th wedding anniversary. And us kids were kind of farmed out to different places.
And I remember Saturday night being brought home by one of the neighbors, because mom and dad were coming home. And he dropped me and my brother off. I was dirty. I'd played in the barn all day at his place. And so I had to go in the basement to change.
My brother went in the front door. But I remember sitting in our basement in this chair, bending over, unlacing my boots. And my brother came down the stairs. I just looked up at him. I said, Are mom and dad home?
And he looked at me and he said, Mom and Dad are dead. And I said What? He said, mom and dad are dead. They were killed in a car accident an hour ago. And he turned around and walked upstairs.
Okay. And I mean, he had just heard himself. He was just coming downstairs to tell me. But I remember that moment. I remember that.
Hitting that cold cement floor and crying all by myself for about 10 minutes. Like any 12-year-old would cry. I mean, I know. What it's like to be an orphan, and I know what it's like to. wonder, you know, what's going to happen to us.
Who's going to take care of us? What now? Are we going to be able to stay together? Can we stay on the farm? All these things that go through your head and Just Trying to grapple with the fact I'm never gonna see mom and dad again and trying to Get that figured out and and and how I wish my last interaction with my father would have been different.
But I also know what it's like to be rescued because three months before this accident, my aunt and uncle, my mom and dad changed their wills that if anything would happen to one of the families, the other family would take them. My aunt and uncle were thirty three years old. They had three children of their own. They lived in a really nice suburb of Milwaukee. They took all five of us.
So I know what it's like to have someone come in and say, we got you. You know, it may not always be pretty, but we got you.
So back to the hallway in church, and my buddy looks at me and says, You know, we're not going to break up the siblings. I mean, I'm the just right guy to say that, too, because I'm not going to sit there and say, are you sure? I mean, I am I am a recipient of the fact that someone put their yes on the table.
Someone said yes. We will do this thing that is. Seems impossible right now and gargantuan, and just really a difficult pass, but yeah, we'll do it.
So, and by then we had adopted, our fifth child's adopted.
So, I knew it was going to be expensive. I said, Don, how much is this going to cost? He said, Well, They're telling us 70 or 80,000. And I said, Do you have any idea how you're going to do this? He said, no, and I said, I think I got an idea.
And so Don and I, long story short, we've recruited about 10, 15, 20 people. We all sent letters out to people we knew and said, just what my buddy suggested: would you sponsor me for the day while I work in this widow's house? All the money I raise is going to go towards the cost of this adoption. And we found a widow in Nashville who needed help. We got I mean, it was just honeydew list stuff, but we got all the supplies donated for the most part.
We didn't spend any money. I mean, we spent money on stamps, we all sent letters out. And we spent the day working. About 30, 35 people showed up because word kind of got out about what we were doing. And we spent the day working.
And when it was all over, said, and done, I mean, the widow was blessed. Miss Lucille could not believe. how much was done for her that day. And when it was all over, we'd raised a little over $70,000. We've served 1,737 widows, and it's exciting.
There are all kinds of stories of families who adopted. And the value, the joy you bring these widows. I mean, I've been in a home where I'm sitting there thanking you, widow, and Thanks for letting us work on our project. She breaks out crying. It says date.
Thank you, Media. She said. Yeah. She said, I honestly thought God had forgotten about me. And I remember praying at them, dear God, I can't do any of this stuff.
I need some help. And the next thing you know, a week later, this family's contacting me about can we come and work on your house? And we've seen projects where the neighbors saw what was going on, and it changed their life because they saw the hands of Christ and they couldn't believe. And it and it it's we had one girl show up at a at a project She had really fallen away but the prodigies brought her back. Took her back to church because she said, She's, I have seen the hands of Christ.
This is awesome. And you know what? This never gets old, it never gets tiring. And it's so much fun. And for me, I love it because when Satan gets up in the morning with his little minions and he's got his little list, and when he gets to my name, I don't want him checking the box that says not a threat.
Because this is Hotel Earth. Are we here for an impact or are we here for ease? I think there's more reward in impact than there is in ease. And that's what we want to do. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler and Reagan Habib.
And a special thanks to J.T. Olson. He's the founder and president of Both Hands, a ministry dedicated to helping Christian adoptive families fund their adoptions. And you just heard how. by fixing up widows' homes.
By the way. He has a book out called The Orphan, the Widow, and Me. paying it forward with both hands. and it's available wherever you get your books. And what an inspiring story.
So much of this is prompted by his buddy Don's trip to Moldova, a mission trip. in which he came back with one child but did not want to separate. The family, he had three siblings, this child. And of course we then find out J. T.
Olson knew a bit about Being an orphan. He finds out at the age of 12 that his mother and father are dead. that they had died in a car accident and he said, I know what it's like to be an orphan. Who's going to take care of us? And always grappling with the fact that he was never going to see his mother and father again.
Is Christian faith a fundamental part of all of this? His comments at the end about the devil.
Well, many Christians in this country feel that way. There is a devil. And the way to have him skip you is to, well, make it hard for him to attack. The story of J. T.
Olson Here on Our American Stories. Shhh, you won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs. Is your child having conversations you never imagined? Are they learning without realizing it? It's not a tablet.
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